The Hero of Our Heroic Age 




A Sketch of Colonel William Pepperrell 




COLONEL WILLIAM PEPPERRELL. 



The Hero of Our Heroic Age 

A SKETCH of COLONEL WILLIAM PEPPERRELL 

By IVORY FRANKLIN FRISBEE 



When a great man dies 

For years beyond our ken, 
The light he leaves behind him lies 

Upon the paths of men. 

— Longfellow 



COPYRIGHT 1900, BY IVORY FRANKLIN FRISBEE 



R I N T E D AT THE HEINTZEMANN P It ESS, DEWEY SQUARE, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 



1 



FZ3 



_JS£1£2- 

UibrMry of Consiress 

i.wt) Copies Received 
AUG 18 1900 

Copyright entry 

SECOND COPY. 

Delivered to 

ORDER DIVISION, 
SEP 21 1900 



No. 



80071 



Jietitcateti 

To the Honorable Senators of Maine, 

Sttgene %ale am 
WLiimm $♦ iFr»{ 

c whose lives represent the nobility of her 
founders 



INTRODUCTION 

" f | AHE Hero of Our Heroic Age " was written for the Pepperrell Association, of 
I Kittery, Me., at its assembly in 1898. Its purpose is to present, in a brief, 
comprehensive sketch, the life of Col. William Pepperrell, the founder of the 
Pepperrell family in America. By repeated solicitation it is given to the public in 
its present form. To the original address, however, have been added certain incidents 
relating particularly to his advent to Kittery. Thus, while giving to the descendants of 
Col. William Pepperrell renewed interest, it will arouse in others, it is believed, a 
fuller appreciation of one of the most unique characters of our colonial history, and, 
in view of the projection of his influence through his own deeds, and those of his 
son, Sir William, inspire a deeper reverence for the name of Pepperrell, which, in our 
early history, stands second only to that of Washington. 

Ivory Franklin Frisbee, 
"June, igoo Lewiston, Me. 



" That things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half 
owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs." 



COL. WILLIAM PEPPERRELL was born at Tavis- 
tock, Devonshire, England, 1646. His family was of 
ancient and illustrious lineage, and after centuries of 
vigor, still preserves its name in the annals of his 
province. This, while noted in itself for its richness 
and beauty of scenery, lies in the midst of the most 
distinguished locality of England. 

The little district, washed by the Bristol and English 
channels, not only had long been known for its com- 
merce, agriculture, and manufactures, but also famed for 
its mental energy and spiritual vigor. The ocean in all 
ages has been a potent means of civilization. But from 
these shores, for over a century and a half, had sailed those great English expeditions for the 
exploration and ownership of the New World. From these waters the bold Cabot had put to 
sea, hence Drake had circumnavigated the globe, and from these ports Raleigh, Smith, 
Popham, Gilbert, and Gorges had projected the colonization of America. Thus, with the 
reawakening of the world, the mental activity of this people, far above all England, had 
become intensely aroused. 

And so from the coast of Cornwall and Devonshire, which are nearer to Maine than is 
any other part of England, for over half a century after the ascendancy of Charles I., flowed 

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to her coast a steady stream of immigration, bringing hither men of wealth and valor, with 
the arts of life, and the foremost progressive spirit of the British Isles. Vessels constantly 
plied between Dartmouth, Plymouth, Falmouth, and the ports on the Bristol Channel and 
the Piscataqua, Isles of Shoals, and the Merrimac. So close, indeed, it is said, was the com- 
munication between the people of these districts that their families were scarcely broken. 
These rock-bound and storm-lashed shores of Maine and New Hampshire seemed to them, 
in truth, like those of their sea-girt isle. So to these lands they affixed the same names that 
had designated the towns, cities, and scenes that they had left ; and, as we would expect, the 
social life of these towns, too, represented the miniature of old England, save that the prim 
amenities, hospitality, and the sumptuary religious rites of their old homes received, under the 
spirit of liberty which continually pervaded their new, a more liberal bias and a loftier aim. 

To such a people came William Pepperrell, not, however, as an adventurer seeking to 
replenish his prodigal purse with nuggets of gold, nor as a fugitive from the religious strife 
of the Old World. The premature death of his father, and the financial reverses that subse- 
quently befell his family, had left him, early in life, with only the chief blessing which the 
ancients believed that the gods vouchsafe to man, the aspirations of a noble ancestry. Full 
of the spirit of his province he sought to rebuild his fortune in the New World ; and thus his 
achievements here, by their own heroic vigor, through the vista of over two centuries, glow 
still as a beacon light. 

His first visits to Maine were upon certain fishing expeditions which were then being 
sent out to these shores and to the Banks ot Newfoundland. While employed in these he 
foresaw the superior advantages that the former offered his business and the latent possibilities 
of this country. Accordingly he soon abandoned the sea, and, with a Mr. Gibbins, went into 
the business of curing fish upon the Isles of Shoals, whose rugged cliffs, then teeming with 
busy life, seemed not bleak and inhospitable to the new comer. 

At Kittery Point, Maine, lived Mr. John Bray, from whose warehouse Pepperrell was 
wont to refit his vessels and replenish his stores, and, perchance, to anchor his craft more fre- 

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pepperrell's cove from the tomb lot. 




THE PEPPERREI.L CHURCH. 



quently in the cove, which centuries after should perpetuate his name, that he might catch a 
glimpse of the shipwright's beautiful daughter, Margery. After four or five years' residence 
at the Isles of Shoals he and Gibbins dissolved partnership, each agreeing to settle on the 
eastern or western coast as lot should determine. But Pepperrell's lot was evolved, undoubt- 
edly, through the magic of the fair maiden, for he next appears settled at Kittery Point suing 
for her hand. 

Mr. Bray was of ancient lineage and of that band of pilgrims who had left Plymouth, 
England, in the early and uncertain days of the Restoration. While yet holding rich estates 
in the Old World, he was rapidly accumulating others in the New. And the suit of Pepperrell, 
owing to his slender fortune, was not readily favored by the lord of the estates. 

But: 

" What if a hundred years ago those close-shut lips had answered No, 
When forth the tremulous question came that cost the maiden her Norman name, 
And under the folds that looked so still 
The bodice swelled with her bosom's thrill ? 
Should I be I or would it be 
One tenth another, to nine tenths me ? 

Soft is the breath of a maiden's Yes, 

Not the light gossamer stirs with less; 

But never a cable that holds so fast 

Thro' all the battle of wave and blast, 

And never an echo of speech or song 

That lives in the babbling air so long ! 

There were tones in the voice that whispered then 

You may hear to-day in a hundred men." 

Soon, however, by a series of fortunate ventures, he won also the father's heart. The 
Bray house, which was old even then, stands still as the most ancient monument in Maine of 

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colonial times, and its sunny parlor, the witness of the simple marriage rites of William Pepperrell 
and Margery Bray, is preserved to-day intact, with its quaint windows, wide fire-place, and an- 
tique paneling and wainscoting. Close at hand, on a site granted by his father-in-law, Pep- 
perrell built his mansion, which now marks the scene of the founding of the Pepperrell family 
in America. 

This marriage of William and Margery teemed with great events. Through a partner- 
ship with the shipwright and merchant, Bray, Pepperrell was given at once an ample sphere for 
his splendid abilities. But a richer fortune inhered in his wife. She exemplified at once the 
Greek and Christian ideal of beauty, and her high spiritual intuition became to his vigorous 
qualities a sixth sense, which enthused ever his efforts with the highest purpose. Through 
this marriage the old mansion with its stately gables, now a forgotten relic of a glorious past, 
was to become a nursery of heroes, the centre of wealth and culture, the favorite resort of 
the clergy, statesmen, governors, and of strategic councils. To them a son was to be born 
who, while sharing the honors of state with his father, should be courted by the most fashion- 
able and select society of the colonies. 

He, indeed, with a conqueror's might was to become " A John the Baptist of the Revo- 
lution." It was he who should, in truth, prepare America for the establishment of Protestant- 
ism. From the blood of Pepperrell a new race, which Holmes calls the " Brahman Cast of 
New England," should spring to build and rule a mighty Nation. 

When William Pepperrell had begun his career at Kittery Point, along his wharves, 
through his warehouses, and in the public gatherings of his town, he early manifested in a 
large degree that business energy, pluck, inventive genius, and breadth of spiritual vision that 
had characterized his boyhood home. Soon his firm led in all the colonies. It extended its 
operations to Saco and Portland, sent yearly over a hundred vessels, manned by the hardy sons 
of Kittery, to the Grand Banks, others on trading expeditions to the southern ports of the 
colonies and of the West Indies, or on foreign voyages to the European markets. As his 
son, William, came into the firm, although owning already the greater part of his own village, 




MARGERY BRAY PEPPERRELL. 



and all of Saco, he bought large tracts of land in most of the other townships, from Kittery 
to Portland, so that, it is said, he could ride thither on his own estate. Largely through his 
business energy Kittery grew more rapidly than did any other town in Maine. Indeed, during 
his greatest activity it paid over one half of the taxes of the State, and his warehouses and count- 
ing room became the coveted commercial college for the sons of the most worthy families. To 
enter here, under the firm of Pepperrell and son, the Sparhawks, the Vaughns, the Frosts, the 
Chaunceys, and the Wentworths, whose names have no superior in colonial history, deemed it a 
high privilege and an honor. At his death his name had become throughout the colonies the 
synonym of pluck and business push, and his firm represented the richest fortune in North 
America. The firm of Pepperrell and Son was, in fact, to the New World what the Rothschilds 
are to-day to the Old. It not only paid large taxes to the State, but made possible by its 
financial support every expedition against the foe from Port Royal to Louisburg, for whose 
equipment alone the junior Pepperrell furnished over five thousand pounds. 

Yet this vast estate was accumulated and preserved amid the greatest dangers, hardships, 
and vicissitudes of Colonial times. Maine in those days was the frontier, the bulwark of the 
rest of the colonies. Her territory on the north was almost constantly traversed by marauding 
hordes of French and Indians, and on the south invested by pirates. Young Pepperrell had 
hardly entered upon his business at Kittery Point when a malignant savage war broke out and 
continued for nearly half a century with unabated fury. Life then seemed almost a daily struggle 
for existence. There was no standing army, but every man was a soldier. Pepperrell in taking 
the lead in the defences of his town built, at his own expense, Fort Pepperrell, near the site where 
Fort McClary now stands. Of this he had command and also of the militia at the Point, but 
later as Lieutenant Colonel he had under his command the militia of Maine. His men worked 
at the yards and docks, while wary sentinels guarded the hilltops, or while others from the 
fort ranged the outposts in search of the savage foe. His fields were the muster ground for the 
western towns of the province where, in almost daily drill, the soldiers were trained under his 
hand, not only for the tricks of the savage, but also for the strategy of the French. Although 

9 



Kittery, on account of her numerous creeks and rivers, was naturally more exposed to the attacks 
of the Indians than were the neighboring towns, yet by the vigilance of Pepperrell it suffered 
less than they. Through his courage, energy, and military ability in the face of a combined 
savage and skilled strategic force, the light of his colony was ever kept burning. 

Pepperrell also was engaged largely in shaping the judicial affairs of his town and 
province. Amid his great business cares and military duties, he was justice of the peace for 
thirty-five years, and in 17 15 was appointed judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Although 
Maine became a province of Massachusetts, yet she always held her domestic and civil relations 
intact. Hence, while the quaint penalties of the times for breaking the common law were here 
enforced, the theocratic code of Massachusetts Bay and of Plymouth never found a hearing. 
Before Pepperrell the right of any man to worship God as his conscience dictated was never 
questioned. Before him neither German nor Dutchman, neither Catholic nor Quaker was ever 
indicted for his religious belief. His clear, unclouded sense of justice revolted alike at the atrocities 
committed in the name of piety by Philip II., and those committed in the name of a Jewish 
theocracy by Winthrop, Cotton, and Mather. Untrammelled bv any form of mediaeval supersti- 
tion, he strove always to establish liberty of life and freedom of conscience. 

Pepperrell, too, exerted a great influence in the political interests of the province. Min- 
gling freely with his fellow townsmen he was their constant adviser, and champion of their rights 
and privileges. In all of this work, by his position in business, in military and judicial affairs, he 
was a commanding power, and, in 1696, he became the people's representative in the general 
court of Massachusetts. In Maine from the time of Gorges, every person before the law had 
the right to participate in the government under which he was born, irrespective of property, 
education, religion, color, or previous condition. Her provincial government was of two bodies, 
which her people tenaciously maintained through all of her history, and which became the model 
tor the form of legislation throughout the states and Nation. In maintaining these principles 
Pepperrell acted far in advance of his time. Then the idea of the inalienable rights of men had 
gained but little attention. It had not found lodgment in the mind even of Roger Williams, for 
10 







THE PEPPERRELL MANSION. 



:•. / 



his form of government, like that of Plymouth and of Massachusetts Bay, was a theocracy. In- 
deed, this was the cardinal principle of the revolution. Aye, not until after the Civil War, with 
all its sacrifice of treasure, men, and blood, did it become, by the fifteenth amendment, fully en- 
grafted into our Constitution ; and even now, in many quarters, this right is not a fact as it was 
under the influence of Pepperrell. Lest injustice may thus seem to be done Massachusetts in 
her Colonial days, it is to be remembered that her attitude toward Maine, although her province, 
was wholly mercenary. The one purpose of Massachusetts was to establish a Jewish theocracy. 
Although deriding Maine as her enemy for receiving refugees from her persecution, she aided 
her in driving the Indians as far as possible from her own borders. Thus, says Chamberlain, the 
brunt of the century of Indian wars fell upon Maine. She was the frontier and flying buttress 
of New England, her soil the battle-ground and her sons the vanguard. Although this aid was 
of undoubted advantage to Maine, and although there is due Massachusetts a deep debt of grati- 
tude for her great and substantial services in all of our subsequent history, still no one wishes to 
ignore the intolerance of her colonies in banishing Roger Williams, in persecuting the Quakers, 
and in executing the so-called witches. So, on the other hand, in studying the character of Pep- 
perrell, we must note that Maine, notwithstanding the uncertainty of maintaining her government 
amid the hard conditions of the New World, the rivalry of sects, the malignity of the French, and 
savagery of the Indians, put, as the first principle of her civil polity the inalienable right of the 
franchise. 

Pepperrell was no bigot. His energies were always exerted for the highest social and moral 
welfare of the people. Although living in a time when slavery and bond service were common 
in the other colonies, he never imported the one nor employed the other. He solved both the 
slavery and labor questions before they began. While he was liberal to the poor, he knew that 
the only way to develop a self-respecting, independent yeomanry was to help them develop them- 
selves. His great fortune, therefore, was acquired by stimulating free labor and enterprise among 
his fellow citizens, and it was largely due to this policy that Kittery, as we have seen, for a long 
period paid over half the taxes of the State. It was true, however, that Pepperrell had one or 



two household slaves. But these were often retained to relieve the town of their support, and 
in Maine they could not be set free until they had become fitted by their masters to care for 
themselves. Yet Pepperrell at his death gave freedom to his slaves, anticipating the father of our 
country nearly seventy years, and John Brown one hundred and thirty. His democratic spirit is 
further shown in the rearing of his family. This, consisting of two sons and six daughters, he edu- 
cated according to his station. He furnished them not only with the public education of the time, 
but, through a Harvard tutor, Rev. John Newmarch, with many of the graces and arts of culture. 
His daughters, indeed, foreshadowed the new woman, whom our industrial civilization has 
brought so prominently to the front. They were educated with their brothers and like them, 
inheriting their father's energy and business tact, made many a venture of trade in his ships sail- 
ing to the European markets. 

Yet there was something in Pepperrell's life above mere money getting, loftier than 
military glory, or judicial fame, and nobler than aesthetic culture. Enthused, as we have 
seen, by the great Protestant thinkers of England, freed from the vagaries and superstitions of 
his time, gifted with a many-minded brain, he was most responsive to the finer culture of the Chris- 
tian religion. Nor was this chastening, purifying, ennobling influence with him a mere sentiment. 
In his daily walks with men he was both charitable and helpful. His hand was open to the 
needy, and his home an example of Christian hospitality. Amid all the cares of business, of 
court, of politics, and of an almost constant savage warfare, his great purpose, encouraged by his 
exemplary Christian wife, was to establish, above all the vicissitudes of the strife of bigots, a State 
where man should be aided by all of his environment of birth, of education, of social, of political, 
and of religious influence, to rise into the full fruition of his spiritual being. We have spoken 
of his New Testament-like spirit toward the Catholic, the Papist, and the inly-lighted Quaker. 
But the old church, which he founded, and of which, while he lived, he was a pillar, is to-day 
the greatest proof of his highest and most enduring labors. 

As the weight of years approached, he laid his burden more and more upon his son, 
whom now he beheld enjoying the highest position in the gift of the people. Thus at the age 

12 





FORT MC CLARY, NEAR SITE OF FORT PF.PPERRELL. 



THE BRAY HOUSE. 



of eighty-seven, in his home, which he had reared as a model of taste and refinement, looking 
out upon the ocean which was filled with his stately ships, honored and esteemed by his fellow 
citizens, surrounded by his cultured and amiable family, rejoicing in the proud honor of 
his son, satisfied with the measure of work that he had accomplished for humanity, and filled 
with the hope of a glorious immortality, his great spirit took its departure as the sun sinks 
below the rich autumnal glow of the western horizon. 

If, in these days, when our resources, manufactures, and commerce have been developed 
and the laws and facilities of trade have become established, Pepperrell had accumulated his 
great fortune, he would stand among the most sagacious business men of our time. But he 
created his wealth from what ? From the primeval forest, from the untitled and unfurrowed 
soil, from the trackless sea, untraced by chart and unilluminated by the beacon light, while 
harassed on the one hand by the contentions of hostile factions for the control of the State, 
and on the other, by the constant dread of the savage foe. 

If against these, in revengeful attacks, he had led his soldiers, his name in honor of his 
bravery would have been emblazoned on the brightest page of our barbaric history. But such 
was his skill as an executive officer, in defending his town, that although more vulnerable than 
others, it suffered less than any other town in Maine. 

If he had been a resident of a rich and populous state instead of the province of Maine, 
and as judge had carried out the barbaric code of his time, although his acts would be condoned 
by posterity, he would have been canonized in our ancestor-worshipping history as possessing 
a rare judicial mind. But in an unsettled country, amid new and conflicting cases of civil and 
property relations, by adjusting them according to the higher light of reason and Christianity, 
he projected our whole American jurisprudence. 

If he had been instrumental by torture, persecutions, and murder in denying to all 
but church members the right of franchise, the freedom of speech, and the pursuit of life, 
liberty, and happiness, he would have had, undoubtedly, ere this, a monument erected per- 
petuating his deeds in the cause of humanity. But in the face of Cotton and Mather, in fact, 

l 3 



against the combined influences of the New and Old Englands that were opposed to all true 
liberty of conscience and the pursuit of happiness, not only by his own hand did he keep 
burning constantly the light of liberty, but, also, by his voice and deeds, the spirit of true 
worship as an undimmed taper pointing ever toward the heavens. 

Such deeds are circumscribed by no biography. Through their influence upon man- 
kind they make the annals of true history. In the formation and maintenance of states, two 
forms of human greatness appear. The one, seeing the objective relations of affairs, subserves 
the interests and receives the honor of contemporaries, and fills with illustrious names the pages 
of the so-called contemporary histories. The other, beholding the actual relations of material 
and spiritual entities, creates new forces, invents labor-saving machines, brings under control 
the powers of nature, steam, water, and electricity, discovers new continents, and creates epochs 
in the progress of the race. Men of the latter type live in advance of their times and await 
their just recognition and appreciation until posterity shall have arrived at their status of 
thought and action. 

Of such men was Col. William Pepperrell. His pluck and indomitable energy stimu- 
lated trade throughout every colony of America. His wealth, as we have seen, in equip- 
ping armies in the expeditions against the savage foe, Port Royal, Quebec, and Louisburg, was a 
bulwark of defence to the whole country. 

Moreover, he trained many of these men for their prowess and success in battle. 
Nearly the whole force, with their commanding officers, engaged in the siege of Louisburg was 
from Maine, and nearly one third of Sir William's own regiment was from Kittery, who, 
with the leader himself, had been directly under the command and drill of the elder Pepperrell. 
The great victory at Louisburg was not achieved, as jealous partisans would have us believe, 
by luck, but by the bravery and skill of veterans, who for twenty years in training and 
conflict in the field, had been inured and equipped for every form of hardship and danger, 
led by a general, who in training and military genius, outranged not only the military acumen 
of the New, but also of the Old World. 

H 



These achievements, in which the elder Pepperrell had such a part, opened the way for 
the establishment of American liberty on this continent. They kept constantly in the field a 
body of trained and skillful men. They gave those northern soldiers confidence in their own 
ability to dare defend their rights, so that the fall of Louisburg, the Dunkirk of America, was 
the beginning of a tidal wave that at Quebec swept the power of the French from this land, 
and at Yorktown planted on this soil the inalienable rights of men forever. 

Thus the principles of Pepperrell, which in his town and State were established as a fact, 
long before the puritan colonies dreamed of them, became the conquering principles in found- 
ing our government. The men of Kittery, again and again, had fought for these rights in 
defending their firesides. Again and again in public assembly they had decreed that they 
would defend them in behalf of the colonies with their lives, if need be, years before a musket 
had been fired at Lexington, or ever the hand of Jefferson with a pen of diamond had written 
them in our Constitution. 

As his life has been felt in our civil polity, so it has been a vital factor in our mental 
and spiritual progress. He wrote no chronicles of events, but, in the defence of his town and 
State, he was preparing the battle-ground on which the nation, in the accomplishment of his prin- 
ciples, should make history. He hampered his times with no theological treatise, or religious 
persecutions, for his life was not of creeds and dogmas, but rose above the highest spiritual life 
of his time into the clear blue ether of the twentieth century. In no mediaeval hallucination 
did he attempt any literature, but through his efforts in establishing the American idea of rights 
of men, he struck the key note of all literature on this continent. 

Not only has he given us the spirit of our literature, but his life has been potent in its 
creation. The scenes of which he was so great a part have given many a theme for orator, novel- 
ist, and poet. Thus the land of Pepperrell has inspired the pens of Holmes, Whittier, Long- 
fellow, Hawthorne, and Lowell. 

Happy are we that the life of Pepperrell is not shrouded in the gloom of myth and fable, 
thrice happy that his life, illustrated by facts, far surpasses the glory of the most richly wrought 

J 5 



characters of classic lore. Jason with his loyal band from the court of the gods in search of the 
golden fleece, was the modern Spaniard in search of gold along the Spanish main. Achilles, 
Agamemnon, and Menelaus were sackers of cities. iEneas, embodying the consummate wisdom 
of the ancient world, founded a state whose watchword was self-aggrandizement. It remained for 
the heroes, alone of all the world's history, who planted the first colonies on the coast of Maine, 
men like Popham and Gorges, to found a state which, in its civil, political, and spiritual relations, 
has cherished ever the highest aspirations of mankind. Yet among all these heroes, founders of a 
new nation, who endured the hardships and dangers of a stern and stormbound coast, in fertility 
of business accomplishments, in public spirit, and in majesty of life, Col. William Pepperrell has 
no peer. Aye, who is there among us to-day whose energies are constantly taxed in transmuting 
vast products of raw material into populous towns and cities, that in military executive ability, in 
ripeness of judicial spirit, in breadth of statesmanship, and in magnanimous philanthropy can 
with him compare ! 

Indeed, as projected by the life of this man, the destiny of our republic thus far wrought 
out is but rudely sketched. Our immense material progress, our multiplied mechanical inven- 
tions, our utilization of steam and electricity in manufacture and mobilization, our advancement 
in agriculture and commerce, in the arts and applied sciences, are but the expansion of his work 
in the accumulation of his fortune. We have by the fifteenth amendment granted the right of 
franchise to all, irrespective of color and previous condition, but the complete actuality of this 
law is yet to be achieved. In the extension of the public school and in the foundation of col- 
leges and churches we have exemplified the higher ministration of wealth. But in the competi- 
tion for money great bodies of men are still in slavery to selfish capital, great masses in our 
cities, great areas in our rural districts are still in ignorance ; and although churches have been 
multiplied and literature cheapened and disseminated, yet only now and then the seer appears 
who lives in the unbiased freedom of the will. Although the multiplied forms of mechanical 
inventions, and the consequent progress in manufactures, in agriculture, in transportation, and in 
mobilization have, by reducing the hours of toil, more than doubled our lifetime, yet, while we 

16 




THE PEPPERRELL TOMB. 



are thus permitted, as never before, to live as the gods, we for the most part spend still our leisure 
in aimless vapid amusements. 

The nineteenth century has been indeed a rag-picking, money-gathering age, but it has 
laid the material foundation for the intellectual and spiritual development of the twentieth. In 
this, men will come to know the true ministration of wealth, the rich opportunities of leisure, and 
the highest purposes in life. In this, through the educational, philanthropic, and spiritual 
agencies which have already begun to be established, American labor is to be elevated, the intel- 
lectual and moral faculties of the popular mind quickened and developed, its social feelings 
warmed, and all of its energies directed into higher channels. Then the mass of mind, which 
unhallowed capital now enslaves and poverty buries, shall have been brought into righteous 
actuality. Then every man and every child in America, through the loving care of our father- 
land, shall have been elevated into social equality, and each in the possession of his individual 
rights shall bow in adoration to Him who hath thus far preserved us a Nation. 

This work, descendants of Pepperrell, the life of your sire enjoins upon you. The out- 
ward growth of a nation may be compared to the growth of a coral reef which, over the dead 
bodies of numberless animalcules, rears its crest above the stormy billows, until at length it 
rejoices in the light of a brighter clime, in rich verdure, the wide-spreading palm tree, and 
the populous city. But the true grandeur of a nation is evolved always through the purpose 
and influence of its founders. As the soul is the essential element in a human organism, so the 
spirit of the founder, finding expression more and more in the lives of posterity is to be still, 
through you, the essential element in the development of the Nation. 

When, by succeeding ages, time shall have filled out our prospective destiny, and the ele- 
ments wrought in its completion shall have been justly weighed, when the British and American 
races, in federal alliance for the spiritual elevation of the race, shall have looked back to the origin 
of their new birth, of the Brahman race of the world, the scribe of history will retrace its rise to 
the land of the Pepperrells. And unnumbered hosts of bold yeomanry, statesmen, novelists, and 
poets, in annual pilgrimages to the shrine of our hero, shall bear ever a fresh perpetual inspira- 
tion from his life in the motto of our grand commonwealth, Dirigo, I clear the way. 

*7 



AUG 18 1900 




THE SPARHAWK HOUSE, KITTERY, MAINE. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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